


my life i forfeit, but not my love

by joanofarcstan



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Mind Games, Minor Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29042403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joanofarcstan/pseuds/joanofarcstan
Summary: It is told that Finrod Felagund died in his own tower on Tol Sirion, faithful to the last. If nothing else, he fulfilled his oath, though it brought him a death alone in the dark, ruined in body and in spirit, where no one would ever see or care.Here is a question: how does a king in the hands of the enemy keep his city safe?Here is another question: what happened after?_______________________Snow and stone. Ink and gems. Blood and steel. Joy and grief. A hundred suns rise and set in a heartbeat; the stars smile a thousand times. Kingship and loyalty, service and betrayal, love and poetry and death.This is the sum total of who Finrod Felagund was, brought to bear in one last song.(Already he thinks of himself in the past tense. But Finrod Felagund has had two thousand years and more of songs and brotherhood and love. It is enough, many times over.)
Relationships: Eärwen & Finrod Felagund | Findárato, Finarfin | Arafinwë & Finrod Felagund | Findaráto, Finrod Felagund | Findaráto & Sauron | Mairon
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26





	1. sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> 0\. This began when I listened to a fancam of the Lay of Leithian rock opera's premiere and heard the words "forgive me, my country," and of course I had to write a fic to it! The length of the fic, however, far exceeded my expectations.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _sacrifice_ (noun): a rite of offering to God or a higher purpose.

'My dear, sweet Felagund.'

A hand strokes Finrod's hair, or what is left of it, and he is too far gone to resist. Hot tears roll down his cheeks as he tries to pretend that it is someone else touching him, soothing him as a friend, a brother, a lover.

Tries, and fails. Like with his city ( _for he has seen its fall_ ), like with his kin ( _for he has seen their doom_ ).

Like he always does.

‘I wonder,’ murmurs Sauron, lifting Finrod's chin and tilting his face side to side as if examining a horse on the auction block ( _or a thrall in the fortress_ ), ‘if Nargothrond might be persuaded to ransom you.’

Gorthaur means to instill false hope, to raise the stakes and burn them, but Finrod is beyond hope and beyond fearing a stake to which he bound himself willingly. And so, throwing his head back, he laughs—bitter, harsh, perhaps utterly _mad_. But all this was born in madness and it is but a small step from despair to madness, and he laughs and he laughs and he laughs until he feels the blood bubbling up in his throat, tastes it staining his lips, and chokes on a crimson smile. ‘Nargothrond has nothing for me but hatred now. Cities devour their own kings, an oath her own children. You may as well ask the Powers to forgive us!’

The irony, of course, is that for some of them there might still be forgiveness. Surely the followers are not so guilty as the leader; surely the sins of the king are not for the faithful to bear.

Oh, but he is a king no more, and never shall be again. Yet he is still their captain, if no better term there is, and he will be damned—funny, the _irony_ —before he sees any of his people condemned, when every ‘crime’ of defiance they commit is in his name. Every torment of flesh-charring fire and heart-shattering ice and bone-crushing steel is that which he has brought upon them through his own acts, his own _arrogance_. Their deaths are on his head, and his alone.

But Gorthaur laughs, too, his mouth twisting into something cruel. 'Then I will have you to myself,' he says with all the satisfaction as if he has won some great prize ( _and he has in the wealth of secrets in his hands, but that is not the look in his eyes_ ). 'It would be a waste to trade away such a pretty face.'

And then, with one last too-gentle brush of knuckles against Finrod's cheek, Gorthaur leaves. He understands, then, and really it should come as no surprise, that the terrible dread for what might come upon his return is a sharper scourge than any of strike of his lash. It is memory, though, that raises her clawed hands in Finrod's mind to tear open wounds new and old, and the present blends with the past with the future with truth with illusion and he wishes for light and finds—

 _Forgive me, my lord. I miss the trees_. Through his mind echo Edrahil's last words to him, not vicious with the fire of betrayal, nor sarcastic with the ice of contempt, though each would be well-deserved, but regretful and longing, and loyal to the last.

It was not Edrahil who ought to beg forgiveness, but Finrod himself. There were screams, then whimpers, then—blessed, cursed—silence. And Sauron has no use for bones, so now there is nothing.

 _Nothing_.

In a sudden burst of clarity, Finrod remembers Turgon in Valinor, solemnly telling him, 'If I die in a strange land you will give me my rites, and so I will do for you.' And even as he wonders which is the strange land now, this vale of wrath and tears or that place of light and light and light forever, he knows with the same devastating clarity that Edrahil will never have his rites, the rites he should never have needed in the first place were it not for Finrod's thoughtless cruelty.

He promised his people security, and became the wolf they warded against; promised them happiness, and brought them only darkness and torment; promised them love, and let them die for it. And now they are gone to the distant gods, and he has nothing for them. He remembers not the shine of the silver-white stars, nor the rush of the river towards the Sea, nor the spring grass beneath his feet; and he remembers still less of mercy.

It is funny that only now does he realize that he never learned how to pray. But he prays nonetheless, for it is all the power he yet holds to help his people, and even if it damns him for eternity he will use it to right whatever wrongs he can.

He prays. No, he _begs_.

Poetry it is that twists the dagger a little further, perhaps, and brings the proud once-king Felagund to his knees upon the stone of the tower he built too well, when once he ruled from a throne inlaid with gold and gems, a pearl in the oyster of Nargothrond.

If it is poetic justice, then it is fitting, concludes Finrod through a vicious crimson smile, bloodied and battered and revelling too much in the white-hot agony that shoots through the shattered bones of his knee as they are crushed again. _Suffering shrives us, does it not?_

(It does not, but there is no place before the gods for traitors and kinslayers except on their knees.)

 _Grant them peace_ , Finrod begs of the Valar, their messengers, the One, anyone who might be listening. He uses the old language, and what little he knows of the Vanyarin tongue. _Grant them peace; let their sins be judged as mine alone._

 _Have mercy on them_.

There is no answer except the cruel laughter of Gorthaur and his hand excruciatingly gentle on Finrod’s cheek, but there never is. Idly, Finrod wonders how much time has passed. Seconds become hours, and weeks mere minutes.

In the end, it matters not.

‘If you wanted pain, my darling, all you had to do was ask,’ Sauron tells him softly, gently, _lovingly_ brushing his tears away to brand his skin with flame. And as he screams, Gorthaur leans down, leans closer until his lips brush the tip of Finrod’s ear with the same unholy flame, murmurs as intimately as a lover, ‘For suffering shrives you, does it not?’

It is so easy.

The kiss of fire upon his skin, the caress of sorcery on his mind—

 _I will tell you everything_.

Yet when Sauron asks where Nargothrond is, voice honey-sweet and touch feather-light, cool fingers soothing the trails of agony adorning his skin, Finrod feels a power forged in forbidden oaths and forgotten song rise up within him to choke him on the coppery taste of his own knowledge so that the words die before he even thinks of them, and he laughs, a broken, gasping, utterly unhinged sound.

A song that even the darkness shies away from: vengeful, greedy, ruthless.

 _Forgotten_ , because it has razed entire forests and poisoned entire rivers, and the survivors burned it away from their history. _Forbidden_ , because it does not stop at ravaging the body, but rages on through the spirit until it is dissolved into a thousand shards of glass, a thousand tiny glimmers of crimson and gold.

Fleeting beauty in eternal extinction. This is the song Finrod Felagund has set in his own heart.

Well. He is going to die anyway, and oblivion is a small price to pay for his old kingdom’s safety. Death is merely an unknown, until—

(Finrod ignores that this is nothing like the deaths of Men, whose souls move past the Circles of the World beyond to wait for Arda Healed. There will be no return or Arda Remade for him, not after this terrible power within him is fulfilled.)

 _Until something_ , he tells himself, because he needs something to believe in, whether it is real or not.

(Luckily, there has been no one better at deceiving Finrod Felagund than he himself.)

Sauron’s fury is turned once more upon him with a blistering strike that lays open his cheek, but Finrod only laughs again and rasps, ‘Everyone breaks.’ It is a small step from breaking to madness. ‘I will die first.’

Sauron’s face twists, his fingers curling tight around Finrod’s throat, raising blisters and carving tiny rivers of blood there, but still Finrod lets a crimson laugh break forth from his lips, beyond pain, beyond fear in his newfound freedom in being damned. ‘You will have to do better than that, Gorthaur.’

Disgusted, Sauron releases him, flings him to the floor where he remains limp like a rag doll. ‘Oh, I will,’ hisses Sauron, pointing a finger at Finrod, then a glint enters his eye that Finrod likes not at all. ‘Yet you are the prize, my noble Felagund, and Beren need not wait to die.’

 _No_. Finrod has forgotten about Beren, counted on his being mortal to put him beneath Sauron’s notice—

A wolf prowls forward out of the darkness, yellow eyes glowing with sinister, singular intent, and Finrod knows what he must do.

He has had one thousand years and more of joy and grief and triumph and tragedy.

It is enough. Let the sorcerer sing, one last time.

He brings everything he has ever known, ever learned, ever felt into this finale. He remembers the mournful cry of the gulls on the far shore ( _for whom do the bells toll?_ ), the knife-sharp gusts of the Helcaraxë so cold they were fire ( _whose heart, whose knife?_ ), the world wreathed in gold when Finduilas wrapped her tiny hand around his finger ( _whose price to pay?_ ). He remembers the rocking waves of the Sea that was his sanctuary ( _the wrongdoer or the wronged?_ ), the bloody hands grasping his in the marsh ( _the saved or the damned?_ ), the bright sword at his throat in his own court ( _the loyal or the traitor?_ ).

He remembers being a child, being sung to sleep in his mother's arms ( _and he will never see her again_ ), he remembers being dragged by his sister through meadows and picking wildflowers to make a crown for her ( _and her husband will do that for her now_ ), he remembers the weight of the first sword he picked up in soft child's hands ( _and no child should ever have to know that_ ), the world draped in silver at moonrise, the red of the campfire, the foam of the river, the rhythm of marching, and the sky at dawn.

Snow and stone. Ink and gems. Blood and steel. Joy and grief. A hundred suns rise and set in a heartbeat; the stars smile a thousand times. Kingship and loyalty, service and betrayal, love and poetry and death.

This is the sum total of who Finrod Felagund was, brought to bear in one last song.

(He already thinks of himself in the past tense. But Finrod Felagund has had two thousand years and more of songs and brotherhood and love. It is enough, many times over.)

The sorcerer sings.

The chain snaps.

The wolf turns away from Beren, and Finrod smiles. Already the song burns within him, crushing him, making him taste blood and ashes.

Really, the heart of the matter is this: he is going to die. He may as well die for something.

And then the wolf is upon him, and he is not sure whose teeth are whose, whose screams are whose, whose blood it is that turns to bitter smoke in his mouth. The wolf roars, rends flesh from bone with one terrible swipe of its claws, sinks its poisoned teeth into his defenceless body, and he chokes, not on laughter this time.

The ground is very cold. Fire licks through his veins, and wearily he thinks, _At least it will be quick_. A race to see what kills him first: the spell, the poison, or the power.

Yet part of him wants to linger. Death is the final clarity, and he has loved this world, loved it dearly, and—

And perhaps he does fear what comes after, if only because he knows. But from the darkness comes a broken voice, and he knows that at least he made his last choice well.

‘My king—’

A crimson laugh bubbles out of his throat. ‘A king no more.’ _And never again_. But Finrod Felagund has had four hundred years and more of triumph and glory that should never have been his by right, and it is enough. If there is nothing for him beyond death, then at least he has lived, and kept his word.

 _Forgive me, my city, for loving too well_.

Something wet falls onto his face, momentarily soothing the terrible burning. ‘I am sorry. It should have been me.’

 _Oh, Beren_.

'No, it should not.' _I loved your father, and I loved you_ , Finrod wants to say, but the words stick in his throat, clumping together and sharpening until the shards of doomed love turn themselves inwards against his own heart. He wants to reach up to touch Beren’s face, but his arm lies unresponsive, useless ( _like his supposed protection for the others_ ) by his side.

'It's okay,' he tells his friend. The cold is retreating, with it the pain. He always thought it was the other way around, the pain retreating as the cold comes in, but perhaps that treats _cold_ and _numb_ as too much the same. 'Just a rest. A long rest across the Sea.'

Does he lie for himself, or for his friend? For his friend, Finrod thinks, but he has always been a master of deception when it comes to himself.

'Perhaps we may not see each other again.' The words are harder to find, the vise of the spell or the poison or the power—he knows and cares not which—crushing his chest tighter by the breath. 'The fates of our kindreds' —blood stains his lips— 'are apart. Whither you go' — _so this is what it is like, to choke on one's own soul_ — 'may you find light.'

The darkness closes in: a blanket, a children's song. A familiar warmth like a father’s embrace.

He thinks he feels the brush of his mother’s fingers on his brow, though of course that is impossible. She is not here, and even if she were, she would not forgive him.

Still. If this is death, it is not so bad.

 _Just a rest. Just a little farewell to this world I loved_.

Finrod Felagund smiles as the world dissolves into a thousand tiny points of light.


	2. absolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _absolution_ (noun): forgiveness of sins.

_And yet_.

And yet Finrod wakes on Námo’s barque, shivering. He is not truly awake, nor is this place truly a _barque_ (he only uses the word because he likes the way its quaintness echoes in his mouth, and it comforts him to imagine that one day the Sea might forgive him), but he is _cold_. Cold like dead stars, like all the light of the world has disappeared.

 _Even the Helcaraxë was not so cold_ , he thinks to himself. Memory yet envelops him in her arms, but her touch is devoid of warmth upon his mind—

His _mind_. His _spirit_. He is not awake, but he feels, he thinks—

He _is_.

He fights the urge to throw his head back and laugh—what good are spells and oaths when you cannot even be sure that they truly exist?—and thinks that he might sit here forever and let the cold seep into his bones until everything is grey and dead and far away and he has not even the words to beg for death. For he has _failed_ , yet again, for—

'This is an illusion.' And so what came before was also a pretty lie, and he cannot tell what is truth and what is false, and if he has been deceived so easily—

_What have I said? What have I told?_

_Whom have I doomed?_

'If this is an illusion, then it is a very good one. Even I am fooled.' The Doomsman takes a form, severe and yet benevolent, stepping towards him, and vaguely Finrod thinks that this Mandos seems far kinder than the one he remembers.

But still, even as he struggles and forces himself to kneel before his judge ( _for there is no place for traitors and kinslayers before the gods except upon their knees_ ), Finrod cannot believe. ‘I have failed my people enough, my lord,’ he says, bowing his head to hide a bitter, sad smile choked with jagged tears. ‘I will not fail them again.’

He knows it is a false promise. Perhaps Gorthaur will take pleasure in wringing its breaking from him through illusion and threat and torment, but he makes it anyway. He needs something to hold on to, even for a second, and when that time is up he will find something else to hold on to, and so on and so forth until true death or thralldom claim him.

Already Gorthaur’s cruel, lilting laugh, his delicate fingers tracing patterns of fire over Finrod’s ribs, his elegant knife that carves a thousand tiny cuts into Finrod’s body seem a distant nightmare. A past, well and truly past.

How it will please the Necromancer to break the illusion, to bring Finrod back to his tower, grinding into the ground the crushed bones of his fingers that will never again pluck the strings of a harp.

But instead of working soul-shattering agony, the hand that lifts Finrod’s chin is gentle, and warm, and Finrod nearly sobs as he sees that Mandos has sunk to one knee, looking upon him so very kindly. 

He needs to look away, he needs to remain. He needs to fight, he needs to yield.

Oh, how very _well_ Gorthaur has woven this particular torment. How poetic, how fine shall be the rending of the tapestry.

‘My child,’ the beautiful illusion before Finrod murmurs, brushing away the tears that do escape his eyes now, and even though Finrod knows that this comfort must be false (and even were it real it would be undeserved), he leans into it, lets the tenderness of deceit warm his broken soul. ‘Thou hast failed many, yes, but thou art safe now. No illusion or torment will touch thee in my halls.’ As if in benediction, the Námo whom Finrod wishes so badly were real presses a kiss to his forehead.

This is not right. If he truly is— _dead_ , then he cannot be here. If he is not here, he must not be dead. And if he is not dead, he is still within the walls of his tower that he built too well.

'You are a good sorcerer,' Finrod tells the illusion, who shakes his head.

'Thinkst thou that a Maia, however great, might imitate a Vala?' Within Námo’s voice echo rolling waves of power, and wisdom, and gentleness. It is a thousand years of foreseeing tragedy, and a thousand more of healing it. It is seeing the glass shattered, and painstakingly piecing it back together with lacquer of gold dust.

It is something greater than understanding, something of which Finrod can only begin to touch the shores in his mind.

'Well enough that I might believe a beautiful lie, my lord,' Finrod whispers, bowing his head as a fresh round of unbidden tears fall to the ground and disappear. Here it is that the illusion must be unravelled, and the fire of Sauron's fingertips brush cruelly beneath his eye. 'I cannot be here.' For if he is here in truth, then—

'Something hath changed,' agrees Námo. He sits, and it must be odd, for a Vala to sit on the cold stone floor with a huddled, flickering spirit. Or perhaps he does not feel the cold as Elves do. 'Thine oath was to Eru in the making of that spell, who alone hath the power to unmake it. Thou art released.' Námo frowns, and he is oddly Elven in the furrow of his brow. 'Or perhaps that poison came for thee before that forbidden song.'

Oddly enough it is comforting to Finrod that Námo has no precise answers, either. A sure explanation is too simple, too carefully measured, too smooth to be true, but a myriad of possibilities comforts with the knowledge that some things are beyond the wisdom of even gods and angels.

'Thou art not called hither to account for thy wrongs, but to heal, whether that take an hour or a thousand. But heal thou wilt, here beyond that vale of wrath and tears.' And, standing, Námo rests his hand on Finrod's head in benediction, and for a golden moment enveloped in warmth and _belonging_ , Finrod believes him.

And as the measureless river of time flows by the West and still the threads of the illusion do not unravel around him, Finrod finds himself believing more and more, letting his spirit breathe easier. Perhaps it is weakness, or worse yet arrogance, to presume himself worthy of mercy, but—

'Perhaps it is courage.' These are the words of Nienna, the lady of grief robed in grey, but she looks upon him with kind eyes, and he feels like he could sit in her presence for eternity. 'Is not hope a mark of courage?'

'Have I not been the cause of much mourning, my lady?'

She considers him. 'Have not we all?' She offers him her hand, a strange, wise peace in her eyes.

He takes it.

And with her, he remembers. He mourns.

Before his eyes are the Lamps destroyed; beneath his feet is the earth shaken and rent by a power greater than even Manwë. Around him mountains fall to dust and rivers choke on molten rock; in his ears ring the clang of steel on steel, the scythe forged into a sword; his stomach turns at the sharp, coppery tang of spilled blood, crimson on a white canvas. Between his fingers, down his cheeks slip the tears that a mother sheds for her children gone to the distant gods, a warrior for his lover wreathed in flame, a king for the people he damned and could not save.

Finrod weeps.

He weeps and he weeps and he weeps until he has wrung himself dry, and then he clutches Nienna's hand in his own and trembles. She lets him, wrapping one arm around him so that her shawl settles over his shoulders, too, a barrier against the world.

'Thou art not the only cause of pain in this world,' she tells him softly, and her voice is gentle like raindrops on the silver lake, ripples forming circles of resonance in the glassy surface. 'Rest, child.'

(This is where Finrod realizes the truth of this tapestry, for no creature lesser than a Vala could weave with such power, nor a servant of evil share in such grief.)

He feels raw all over, like someone has torn open all the old wounds he never knew he carried with him, drowning in the pain of the world he loved so dearly. But with it comes some sense of calm, a kind of quiet courage that wraps the soul in its warmth.

 _Peace_ , thinks Finrod Felagund, who has had two thousand years and more of battle and fear and anguish. It is enough.

 _Peace_.

__________________

And so Finrod enters the service of Nienna for a time. He has much to learn, he knows, of grief and compassion and pity despite having lived a lifetime and more on near and far shores.

And peace. Peace is still a foreign feeling to him, waters unmapped. The closest he can come to _peace_ in his memory is his early childhood, when the Sea was his cradle and Arda was—if not _unmarred_ , then _safe_.

Yes, he has much to learn, so learn he does, here, west of the uttermost West. He learns to weep for the wrongdoer and for the wronged, to spin gold from darkness ( _but remember_ , whispers Nienna's voice in his mind, _that 'twere better were there not darkness at all_ ), and to honour mercy—after all, is it not the same as _estel_?

('Many that live deserve death, and many that die deserve life,' Nienna tells him. 'Thou canst not give it to them; be not quick to judge.' A pace behind her, a Maia robed in the same simple, homespun grey repeats the words to himself, and Finrod bows to his lady to acknowledge her wisdom.)

Sorrow, compassion, and courage: these are the things he learns in Nienna's service. The first he comes to know as intimately as he thought he knew triumph, the second he comes to let flow freely from his fingertips, and the third he comes differentiate from mere _bravery_ and to carry within him.

Together, they make wisdom.

So when the news reaches him that the Valar are raising their army to end the Age-long war on the far shores where he fought and died—truly, that star of high-hope is the Silmaril Beren and Lúthien won from Angband, and not all was for nothing—Finrod takes his leave of Nienna, who reminds him that there is always a place for him and anyone he brings with him in her halls. Yet at the tender brush of her fingers on his brow, he knows that this is not _farewell, and for ever_ , and he has over half a century of service and learning steeped in sorrow, compassion, and courage to guide him.

(His ten faithful remain still in the Halls or else in peace in the uttermost West, but his return to war is a form of loyalty to them, too, those for whom the East was their homeland.)

'Memory and mercy go with thee,' Nienna says, raising her hand in farewell. 'Mayst thou find comfort in the stars and the Sea.'

With her blessing shielding his spirit, he bows one last time and thanks her for her teachings, and goes east. In the land of his childhood he kneels and swears fealty to his father, who clasps his hand and raises him to his feet, smiling a smile choked with tears.

'Disguises do not become you, my son,' Finarfin says, pushing back the grey traveller's hood to unveil his son's face, and Finrod has to hide a laugh at the unmarked truth.

(This is another thing he has learned in Nienna's halls: how to laugh again.)

His father tilts his head in a manner so like how Finrod knows himself to be that he does the same. 'You are changed,' his father tells him at last, then enfolds him in a fierce embrace that says all the things that words cannot: _I have missed you, I have worried and wept for you, I have_ forgiven _you_.

It is this last that makes Finrod close his eyes and bury his face in his father's shoulder, let himself be held.

'So are we all,' Finrod replies softly, 'but not always for the worse.' _For the wiser, perhaps, though for the sadder_. After so long away the syllables of Telerin feel strange and oddly-stressed on his tongue, but oh, he has missed it. If Sindarin is the language of war, then Telerin is the cradle-tongue, free and innocent of the blood shed and wrongs done across the Sea.

'And not so changed that I know you no more.' Finarfin wraps an arm around Finrod's shoulders, guiding him away towards where the Sea meets the shore. 'Come. Your mother has missed you as well as I.'

They find her on the sand of pearls, in her hands a bright, gleaming sword that she wields with deadly control; though Finrod mourns the war that thrusts weapons into the hands of healers and sailors, her easy, flowing grace reminds him of streams on stone, fluid, ever-changing, unstoppable. He wonders if the streams of the Narog still flow to Sirion and the Sea, or whether they have been extinguished with the city.

(The city— _his_ city. _His_ city that he built and ruled, abandoned and damned. But he has taken time enough for grief, and now is the time to remember.)

'Eärwen,' calls his father, feet kicking up pearly dust behind him. But Finrod stays a respectful distance away, for this is the same shore upon which her people were slaughtered, the same docks from which their ships were stolen, and he has no right to impose his presence on her if she does not forgive him.

( _Forgiveness belongeth to those who were wronged_ , Nienna told him in one of his first lessons in compassion. _Mercy belongeth to whoever can give it, but never give forgiveness where thou hast but mercy_.)

As his mother looks over to him, eyes widening, he thinks that she has every right to not forgive him, for he chose the slayers of her kin over her, would have boarded the stolen ships and taken passage bought in blood over the Sea. He has shied away from this word, but he thinks now that perhaps she has every right to hate him.

Yet he has overlooked the strength of a mother's love.

'Findaráto,' she breathes, and then she drops her sword in the sand and runs towards him, and then he is running, too, and they collide in a tangle of laughter and tears and long-lost love. Her fingers, callused and tender, brush his face as when he was small, and he bows his head in shame.

'I am _sorry_ ,' he whispers, voice breaking, but she only strokes his hair. Was he always taller than her?

‘Findaráto.’ And he is _Findaráto_ in this land again, though thankfully that is not an innocent name, either. ‘Would you change what you chose?’

In Beleriand Finrod Felagund had a lifetime of joy and grief and triumph and tragedy and love and loss. Would he trade all he learned of diplomacy and defiance, custom and craft, strength and strife? There is light too in the saddest of songs, and beauty in the most terrible of tragedies. _Kingship and loyalty, service and betrayal, love and poetry and death_. These are things he could learn on the far shore alone.

He has to be honest with his mother, though she already seems to know the answer. Tears of shame pricking at his eyes, he looks away. 'No.'

But his mother’s eyes twinkle, sad and fond. ‘You loved and were loved,’ she says simply, _knowing_ without words as only a mother can. ‘All that matters is that you are here now.’

And so with a hug and a few words he is forgiven. That is far more than he could ever have desired when he passed over the Sea for a second time. Later he tells his parents of his time in Nienna's halls, where he has learned sorrow but not forgotten joy, learned compassion but not forgotten war, learned humility but not forgotten honour; and his mother smiles and says, 'Courage, dear heart.'

And across the Sea that has still not forgiven him, not entirely, Finrod returns to the war and coldness and darkness of the land he knew and loved, but he does it with a light in his eyes and a steadiness in his spirit that he has not known since before the Darkening. Yet when it comes time for him to pass into the West for the final time, on a grey ship with rustling sails over a sea that has turned to silver glass, he hesitates. He looks to the West, with its faint light on the horizon, and then back east, where he knows in his heart will unfold the next Age.

His decision is made for him when he hears that Sauron has fled the judgment of the Valar. With a bolt of chilling clarity, he knows that this has only been a battle in a long, long war. There will be peace, and there will be war again, and perhaps peace and war yet again. And who is he if he does not have a duty to the world?

(He is tired. But he loves the world too much to forfeit his right to it.)

 _Do right by thy people, but also by thyself_ , Nienna murmurs in his mind. _Thou art gifted for no idle reason, but we would not begrudge thee rest_.

He has had rest and healing. Perhaps one day Finrod Felagund will return to the land of his childhood and the Sea of his youth that are now strangers to him, speaking the language of old that he thought he had forgotten, and learn to begin another thousand years of peace. But for now…

'I have more to do.'

His father tells him to return when he can, and his mother adds that he ought to do it by ship this time. He promises to write to both of them.

Finrod Felagund has patience and courage and compassion within him, lessons that have carven themselves in blood and tears into his soul. And, he likes to think, some small measure of love—if not earned, then freely given.

It is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I make no apologies, especially not for the first chapter. You are, however, absolutely welcome to scream at me (whether because you liked it or because you want my blood) in the comments or on my tumblr @[fingolfino](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/fingolfino)! I'll give you hugs! <3  
> 


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